ABSTRACT
The transition from caudillismo to rule by military governors occupied Honduras. Demands for increased political participation came from new sociopolitical sectors—urban middle classes, the burgeoning labor movement, rural peasant groups, and a complex array of private enterprise organizations. The halting, inconclusive process of adjusting to the modernizing conditions has concerned Honduran political elites whether traditional, popular, or military in nature. The combination of physical isolation, absence of viable national institutions, and freewheeling values of personal gain produced regionalism, and the instability of caudillo politics. Under the liberalized policies of the Galvez government, numerous political challenges to the status quo appeared. The fragmentation of political power and fluidity of social relations were unstable conditions, although the power of the state became evident as it acquired greater resources and assumed more economic and social roles. The cycle of political frustration stems from unresolved social and economic issues, intractable problems of development, and periodic exclusionary politics.
